"HEART TO HEART" by Patty Ho

PATTY HO was born in Hong Kong. She studied law in the University of Hong Kong and is now practising as a solicitor in a local law firm. She is also at present studying philosophy under the Master of Arts in Philosophy (part-time) programme in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Apart from being a law practitioner and a philosophy student, she has always been a poetry lover and poetry still remains what she loves most. She first started to write poems in Form Six in her secondary school days and since then she has kept up her interest in reading and writing poems. Time and experiences in life have deepened her love for poetry.

PATTY HO introduces her book as follows: 'This book is a collection of the poems which I have written mostly in the past five years. "All beings are like scattered coins, love is the string (which binds them together)". (The original Chinese text is from the preface to "Qing Shi" by Feng Menglong.) If there is anything which links the poems in this book, it must be love. Here I mean love in a wide sense, which includes love between men and women, love between family members, love between friends, love of life and nature, love of poetry and beauty, and so forth. According to the philosopher Max Scheler, man is an "ens amans", a being who loves; I hope that through this book I can share my beloved poetry with every "ens amans".'

"A remarkably engaging and edifying book of simple but thought-provoking poems, [a] timely reminder to the reading public that Hong Kong has more to offer than the sum of its literary, cultural and political stereotypes. If the concept of 'one world' is worth anything in this postmodern age of globalist cynicism, Patty Ho's poetry causes us to reflect on what is quintessentially human and on the fragile beauty of all existence." — Mike Ingham, HKADC Examiner.

"Along with the carefully chosen photographs and thought-provoking watercolour illustrations provided by Ho's sister, the collection constitutes a dynamic conversation between visual and written texts about the emotions and values we all share." — Flora Mak, in Cha: An Asian literary Journal, Issue 12, September 2010.